Danube Delta Lakes as Sinks for Natural and Anthropogenic Environmental Changes

AbstractThe Danube delta lakes are complex ecosystems, which formed and transformed, as the delta evolved. Specifically, their water and sediment depended both on the natural variations and the anthropogenic influences which acted locally or in the catchment. Their bed-sediments are, thus, useful archives to understand how these changes acted and which prevailed at a certain time. Their nature, especially, is conditioned by the variations of the sediment flux brought by the Danube and by in-situ processes. Samples collected from the bed of 36 lakes of the Danube Delta, during the course of several years, show great variation on the main lithological constituents, related mostly to the hydrological connectivity to the main Danube distributaries and to local processes.KeywordsDanube DeltaBed-sedimentsEnvironmental changesOrganic matterSediment records